Kissenger: A lot of conspiracies really do happen. Watergate, iran contra wicki leeks revealed quite a bit. The same generation that had won a world war to in large measure by bombing japanese and german cities continued to believe that the way to win a war to to bomb. Kissenger: It's only arcademics and journalists who've never made en a tougher decision than to spike a piece or to veto a tenure case.
Disasters are inherently hard to predict. Pandemics, like earthquakes, wildfires, financial crises, and wars, are not normally distributed; there is no cycle of history to help us anticipate the next catastrophe. In this episode, Michael Shermer speaks with one of the world’s most renowned historians, Niall Ferguson, who explains why our ever more bureaucratic and complex systems are making us worse, not better, at handling disasters.